Public Eye

It's been a few years since I did a real backpacking trip into the Sierras. So we set a lofty goal last winter of finally scaling the lower 48's highest peak, but failed to win the Mt. Whitney lottery, which is the only way to get a permit to go there.

Just as well. No golden trout on the mountaintop.

Instead, last Friday my daughter Julia, brother-in-law Mike, niece Michelle and nephew Drew and I drove up Highway 395, stopped at the ranger station in Lone Pine, and got a wilderness permit to head up into the high country above the Onion Valley. You turn left from Independence and go from 4,000 feet elevation to 9,2000 at the trailhead parking lot very quickly indeed.

We shouldered the packs and in just over two hours had ascended another thousand feet on switchbacks and arrived at pretty Gilbert Lake. It was getting late -- after 7 p.m. -- so we had to camp there rather than at shadier Flower Lake if we were going to get the tents up and make some freeze-dried grub on our camp stoves.

I caught a pan-sized golden trout as an hors d'oeuvre.

Nice spot. Ten million stars. Amazing how quickly you can get into the real Sierra there in the John Muir Wilderness. Along with peeling across a waist-high right at Malibu, it is the most California experience you can have.

Saturday we took day hikes around the lake and up to Flower and Heart. Read while sitting on big rocks. One guy on the trail said he'd seen a bear, but we didn't -- just chipmunks. Overnight, everything has to go into the black plastic canister, though. One more trout from Flower, a sip of scotch and so to bed. Coldest just before the dawn, and there was a bit of frost on the ground at first light.

Took just an hour to get back down to the lot Sunday morning. We'll return, and go a little farther.